Below is the list of eco-creative examples provided by Tanja on ‘Co-creation’. Find a visual reference to the examples here:

Creating work that enriches both our audiences, as well as our communities and environment:

• The Living Stage (by Tanja Beer) - an ongoing global initiative transforming urban spaces into accessible, equitable and thriving ecological and social gathering places.

Co-creating with material & place:

• Donyale Werle’s Peter and the Starcatcher (USA) -  from NYC junkyards to Broadway Tony Award winning design
• Andrea Carr (London, UK) - from abandoned festival tents & sleeping bags
• Silje Kise, Costume Designer (Norway) - Dress of plastic garbage bags
• Mawukplorm Harriet Abla Adjahoe, Marriage of Anansewa (Ghana) - made from waste of local services and in collaboration with them
• Leslie Travers, Falstaff, Opera North (United Kingdom) - As part of Opera North's drive to be carbon neutral by 2030, Leslie Travers’ entire set was recycled from past shows or from found materials. Falstaff’s home (a worn-out little 1970s caravan) was found unwanted in the grounds of a pub on the north side of Leeds by  resourceful operatic bargain hunters.
• Costume Designer Ingvill Fossheim (Finland) - retrieves hyper-local materials for the performance which relate to my own experiences, memories and stories of the land and its seasonal cycles. The material connection to place contributes towards the collective storytelling of the work.
• Dye Garden (United Kingdom) - Glyndebourne launched a dedicated Dye Garden in 2019 to grow plants specifically for naturally dyeing opera costumes, intended to reduce synthetic dye use. The Dye Garden supplies plant-based colourants—woad and Japanese indigo for blue, madder root for deep red, and weld, marigolds, dahlias, tansy, iris for yellow to orange hues.

Co-creating with Communities:

• Portage, Jen Rae & Giant Grass as part of ‘Refuge’ (Arts House, Australia 2019) - engaged audiences in a series of bamboo workshops the co-built rafts were then used to create an immersive performance piece.
• Aris Pretelin-Estéves’ Tejidos (Mexico) - the work consists of participatory workshops in which a collectively woven artistic piece made with recycled material is created into extraordinary costumes and performed.
• Refugium (Federation Square, 2016, Australia)
• Pickle Party (Theatre Practice, 2025, Singapore)

Co-creating with more-than-human communities: 

• Dutch National Opera & Ballet (Netherlands) - 50 home-made bird boxes
• Centro Cultural Belém (Lisbon, Portugal) - In 2020, The Centro Cultural de Belém (Portugal) installed solar panels valued at approximately €1.4 million. But as the site is located near the coast, seagulls kept pooping on the panels. To solve this, they hired falcons and falcon handlers to patrol the skies and keep the seagulls away from the panels.
• Hillside Music Festival (Canada) - one of Canada’s most environmentally progressive events, has long been celebrated for its commitment to sustainability and community- driven activism.

Below is the list of eco-creative examples provided by Tanja on ‘Celebration’. Find a visual reference to the examples here:

Examples on Programming: Celebrating nature culture through local knowledges & First Nations perspectives

• Teatro Mayor (Bogota, Columbia) - celebrates First Nations and Colombian composers, orchestras, soloists, and musical traditions as well as and Indigenous ways of knowing and aims to become Colombia’s first fully green performing arts centre by 2032
• Big Country Puppets (Theatre Kimberley, Australia) - a major outreach program that uses puppetry and site-specific theatre to address environmental & cultural issues in remote Australia, bringing attention to local endangered species
• Organic Theatre (Kerala, India) - blends Indigenous knowledge, organic farming practices and drama workshops to engage communities in local environmental issues

Examples on Programming: Reframing climate storytelling

• The Climate Imaginarium (New York City, USA) - a centre for climate, community, and culture in New York City through events, performances, exhibits, and film screenings.
• Climate Cafe (New York City, USA)- a community to help you face your climate anxiety, connect you to impactful local organizing, and keep you motivated through camaraderie, creativity, and fun.

Examples on New design & production aesthetics: Celebrating ecological systems & bio- materials

• When the World Turns by Polyglot Theatre & Oily Cart -  a unique biophilic environment that transports children with complex disabilities into ‘the outdoors’ in a safe & accessible space.
• Director Tuấn Lê’s (Vietnam) chose bamboo for the circus show À Ố Làng Phố (Village to City).
• Costume Designer Ingvill Fossheim (Finland) makes garments from microbial cellulose, pigments and dyes out of healing berries and algae, and sustainably sourced reindeer skins and hair.
• Solastalgia by Thomas Kock premiered at Schauspiel Frankfurt in 2022 (Germany). The set design, by Eva Lochner, is made from mycelium panels, with costumes made from waste and reclaimed materials.
• Growing Pavilion by Studio Krown Design (Amsterdam, Netherlands) - temporary pavilion of mushroom mycelium, reeds and agricultural waste.
• Recess Time by Practice Tuckshop’ (Singapore) - a lunch-time theatrical feast in Singapore’s arts district, using theatre to build an awareness of food waste. Chefs salvage unwanted produce in local shops for the menus.

New design & production aesthetics: Celebrating renewable technologies

• Katie Mitchell’s A Play for the Living in a Time of Extinction - a bold experiment to mount a show completely off-grid Off-the-grid dance performance using solar, bicycle-powered and kinetic energy
• FanSHEN’s Cheese (London, 2013) - the company collaborated with a local gym to use modified exercise bikes to power their show (stored in a transportable battery). Gym-going audiences were given discounted theatre tickets in return for their energy contribution.

Celebrating sustainability through buildings and operations:

• The Opéra Bastille (Paris, France) - 2,500 m2 of gardens provide hyperlocal fruits, vegetables, and edible flowers to the restaurants, grocery stores, and producers of Paris.
• National Theatre London (United Kingdom) - Natural Dye and Wellbeing Garden community engagement, and mental wellbeing in creative and educational practices. 

‘Celebration’ Reading resources:

• Robin Wall Kimmerer - Braiding Sweetgrass (2013)

• Tyson Yunkaporta - Sand Talk: How Indigenous Thinking Can Save the World (2019)

Below is the list of eco-creative examples provided by Tanja on ‘Circulation’. Find a visual reference to the examples here:

Circulation in design & production processes

• Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design & Space 2023 Workshop at DAMU Art School (Czech Republic) - collected all materials directly fromDAMU art school, including existing art supplies and waste to transform detritus into opportunities for model making, costume construction and installation design.
• Marie-Renée Bourget Harvey (Québec, Canada) - Madame Butterfly at the Opera de Québec, where the set design was made from reclaimed timber which was then returned to the supplier after the show. La Forêt: wigs were given to local Drag Queens for their own performances and bio -materials were shredded to create compost.
• Janne Robberstad Bømlo Teater ’s The Salmon Surveyor, 2015 (Norway) - the set design featured 950 Styrofoam fish crates which were ‘borrowed’ from a nearby salmon factory to help support the telling of a local story.
• Théâtre Duceppe (Québec, Canada) - A show about Janette Bertrand, a Quebec feminist icon who turned 100 last year. The set design included a large textile piece which was made gathering material from several “farmers’ circles,” groups of women who gather to sew volunteer projects and had freedom to do the topstitching they wanted. About 40 women contributed to the project, and they all attended the show. The textile was then gifted to Janette.
• Aris Pretelin-Estéves’ Tejidos (Mexico)
• Organic Theatre (Kerala, India) 

Circulation across Organisations, Buildings and Operations

• Royal Swedish Opera (Sweden) - Conducted a public costume sale and online auction for over 4,000 items from their extensive collection. Proceeds from the clearance sale were donated to child and youth activities organised by the Opera.
• Scenery Bags (USA) - they create unique, eco-friendly accessories from retired theatrical materials, such as backdrops and stage curtains, from Broadway and other productions. Each item is a one-of-a-kind piece with a label sewn in that details the show the material came from. 10% of profits are donated to the Theatre Development Fund (TDF) for disadvantaged children to access performances. They repurposed more than 34,000 pounds of theatrical waste and sponsored 2,053 students in the TDF program.
• Moira Finucane's ‘climate cabaret ’ (Australia) - One tree has been planted for every table sold in the - 2019 season (880 trees in total).
• Slingsby Theatre Company (Australia) - Each year the company undertakes planting/land care at Lot 50 Kanyanyapilla with First Nations elder, Karl Telfer, who is regenerating traditional lands that have recently returned.

Programming, Touring and Transnational collaboration

• When the world Turns, Polyglot Theatre & Oily Cart, 2020-2024 (Australia/UK) - Creation of a unique biophilic environment that transports children with complex disabilities into ‘the outdoors’ in a safe & accessible space - Concept touring between Melbourne and Londond
• Ooppera Baletti, Finnish National Opera and Ballet (Finland) - Virtual Stage Design, use of XR Stage to create photorealistic digital twins of actual theatre stages, enabling complete virtual rehearsals and lighting design before any physical sets are built.
• Pickle Party (Theatre Practice, 2025, Singapore)